DML - Mission Creation Toolbox [no Lua required]

[cfrag]

Here's an updated version of the Reaper module that supports cycling targets and better integration with the Kiowa, as it's now part of the current 'Expansion' update. Only for those of you who are brave or foolish enough to use pre-release scripts (and @shinobi61, who requested it  ) 

reaper.lua

[shinobi61]

awesome thanks

target switching works well, but appears that the video feed never will change no matter what, its locked to the first thing its looking at even when destroyed etc
 

 

Edited June 16, 2024 by shinobi61

[cfrag]

On 6/16/2024 at 2:41 PM, shinobi61 said:

target switching works well, but appears that the video feed never will change no matter what, its locked to the first thing its looking at even when destroyed etc

Yes. That's because there is no real video feed. The Kiowa doesn't know which target the drone is tracking, currently there is no API in DCS to get this information. All you can get out of DCS is knowing which group the drone has engaged, and my guess is that the video feed is an image genrated by a virtual camera observing the very first unit in the group that is being engaged. Naturally, when the reaper script (which controls its own laster spot) switches targets, there is no way to tell the drone to engage a different unit, so there is no change in the simulated "video feed" from the drone. Once ED makes an API for drones to tell us which unit it is engaging or (even better) to tell it which target to engage this functionality will become much, much better.

[shinobi61]

yeah i figured when it changed "group" it would switch so you could use single unit groups but, it doesn't, shame

[CidTheViking]

Hello cfrag,

I found that the factory zones will only issue one order to units to capture other zones but stop after that. Im not sure if it is the commander script or just AI pathing issues. Does the commander or ground troops script have a way to keep issuing order to cap zones?

CaptureZones.miz

[cfrag]

10 hours ago, CidTheViking said:

I found that the factory zones will only issue one order to units to capture other zones but stop after that.

Units are issues 'standing orders'. If they are issued "attackOwnedZone" they will attack the closest owned zone after the other until all enemy owned zones are captured, and then change all ordersto 'guard'.

Now, the issue that you are seeing is indeed a pathing issue - DCS's pathing is *really* crappy with even slightly complex terrains, and gets abysmally so with a hint of complexity for road maps. Syria's towns will make DCS pathing do really stupid stuff, dive off the deep end, and can even lead to a crash. If you use a CommanderConfig zone with the "noRoadsAtAll" = "yes" attribute, it should work after a fashion, as DML then completely stays off road pathing and tells DCS to remain 'off road'. It'll be not elegant, but at least it works. You can see how poorly pathing behaves in DCS when you enable forceOffRoad and then watch the units blunder through the warrens of some villages, oblivious to roads, and generally move in a way that is, frankly, pathetic for a 'mil sim'. A* pathfinding has been around since 1968, but obviously not for DCS AI. A pity.

Oh, and due to another 'feature' of DCS pathing, you'll have to make the capturable zones bigger (say, 100m radius). lest their "pathing" runs out short of the objective, not landing any units inside the zone.

[EDIT: the correct attribute is called "noRoadsAtAll"]

 

CaptureZones.miz

Edited June 19, 2024 by cfrag

[DD_Friar]

7 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Oh, and due to another 'feature' of DCS pathing, you'll have to make the capturable zones bigger (say, 100m radius). lest their "pathing" runs out short of the objective, not landing any units inside the zone.

Good tip, thanks for this, that explains why when I was testing zone capture the troops pulled up short.

[DD_Friar]

Salute one and all,

Having a bit of an issue using spawners. Maybe the meds are wearing off but for the life of me I can not see why I am getting my issue so any advice from oneone who knows would be appreciated.

My issue is that the US Troops are spawning as soon as the mission starts. they should not spawn until the convoy gets into the ambush zone.

I have attached below screen shots for the applicable zones.

The scenario should run as;

• Convoy comes down the road
• Hits an IED and comes to a stop
• Troops inside the APC bail out and go after the ambush troops.

Edited June 19, 2024 by DD_Friar

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, DD_Friar said:

My issue is that the US Troops are spawning as soon as the mission starts. they should not spawn until the convoy gets into the ambush zone.

I think  I can see a couple of issues:

• Spawners spawn regularly unless they are set to "paused = true". You need to set this attribute to true to prevent regular spawning
• To spawn, please use the input "spawn?" or "spawnUnits?". The manual is incorrect in calling it 'spawnObjects?'

Does that fix the issue?

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag, 

made the changes you suggested. It stopped them spawning at the start,however they then did not spawn at all.

I added "activate?" and used the goAmbush1 flag and now they work. They do not come in as quick as a couple of cloners do (insurgent troops and mortar team who come in as soon as the units enter the zone and fire the trigger.) The spawn is about 5 or more seconds after. but I can go with that.

Would I be able to pick them up via helotroops and a human flown helicopter landing nearby?

Cheers, have a good rest of the day/evening.

Friar

[cfrag]

11 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

It stopped them spawning at the start,however they then did not spawn at all.

Huh. I assume you did rename 'spawnObjects?' to 'spawn?' and then triggered the input flag. I'm happy to take a look at the miz to find out where the script goofed up.

11 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

I added "activate?"

That turns on the automatic regular-interval spawning, so yes, that should work. You may need to turn it off again, though.

11 hours ago, DD_Friar said:

Would I be able to pick them up via helotroops and a human flown helicopter landing nearby?

I designed HeloTroops to be able to pick up any ground troops (as long as the group does not contain forbidden units like vehicles), no matter how they were placed in-mission: by ME, spawner or cloner. So, a definite 'yes'.  

 

[cfrag]

Version 2.26b - 20240620 - Feature Update (cycle reaper targets, sweeper)

Hot on the heels of releasing the 'Reaper' module with the last update, I gleefully jumped into learning to fly the Kiowa. It's an incredibly fun helicopter, and it has a feature that made me gasp in surprise: a video data link to target drones. Needless to say, I wanted this to work with the new Reaper module that I just released. A lot of analysis, and massive rewrites to Reaper later, we have partial success. The new Reaper module ensures that the Kiowa's video synchs to the same group that an UAV is targeting. Since there currently is no viable API in DCS for scripts to learn nor control which unit an UAV is targeting, the Kiowa's 'video link' and the unit that the UAV is targeting isn't synched, the Kiowa will always show the first unit in a group. So when you tell the UAV to cycle targets, the video feed will not slew to the new one. Yeah. I also added the ability to cycle targets for a drone. 

As always, feedback has been stellar, and as a result I've enhanced some of the existing modules. One in particular, autoCSAR has now the option to prevent a common exploit: players ejecting above an undefended airfield/FARP to capture it. And although time was short, I also managed to document one of the 'mystery modules' from "Expansion": sweeper is now officially part of DML, more are to come later.

There are more changes, so read below:

Changes in Detail
    Manual 
        - Reaper updates 
        - Sweeper (new)
        
    Quick Reference 
        - various updates 
        - Sweeper (new)
        
Demos
    - Feats and autoCSAR (update)
    - Reaper, man (update)
    - recon mode - reloaded (update)
    - Willie Nillie (update)
    
Modules
    - autoCSAR 2.2.0 
        new noExploit attribute 
        
    - commander 2.0.1 
        code hardening for waypoint creation 
        
    - reaper 1.1.0 
        - full rewrite of tasking 
        - compatibilitiy with Kiowa's L2MUM
        - menu restructure 
        - cycling of targets 
        
    - reconMode 2.2.2 
        - new groupNames attribute to suppress group names 
        
    - sweeper 1.0.1
        - initial release 
        
    - williePete 2.0.4
        - added Hydra M 259 (Kiowa)
 

Enjoy,

-ch

 

Edited June 20, 2024 by cfrag

[shinobi61]

3 hours ago, cfrag said:

Version 2.26b - 20240620 - Feature Update (cycle reaper targets, sweeper)

Hot on the heels of releasing the 'Reaper' module with the last update, I gleefully jumped into learning to fly the Kiowa. It's an incredibly fun helicopter, and it has a feature that made me gasp in surprise: a video data link to target drones. Needless to say, I wanted this to work with the new Reaper module that I just released. A lot of analysis, and massive rewrites to Reaper later, we have partial success. The new Reaper module ensures that the Kiowa's video synchs to the same group that an UAV is targeting. Since there currently is no viable API in DCS for scripts to learn nor control which unit an UAV is targeting, the Kiowa's 'video link' and the unit that the UAV is targeting isn't synched, the Kiowa will always show the first unit in a group. So when you tell the UAV to cycle targets, the video feed will not slew to the new one. Yeah. I also added the ability to cycle targets for a drone. 

 

 

 

So i figured that i'd be able to cheese the system by using single unit groups but even that doesn't work when a drone is spawned and picks a target that is the only target that the video feed will watch, even when the drone switches to a new group after killing the first one (all single unit groups) it stays on the very first one that it was observing.

Im wondering if there is a work around then, that a drone is like a single use and it despawns / spawns a new drone after the kill

[cfrag]

8 minutes ago, shinobi61 said:

it stays on the very first one that it was observing.

Huh. That's a Kiowa thing then. Too bad. I'll try and file a "bug report" with the kind folk at polychop

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag, Just had a chance to change the mission but afraid the troops now do not spawn. I have attached the settings. below.

I will keep trying other options.

null

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, DD_Friar said:

Just had a chance to change the mission but afraid the troops now do not spawn.

And you are sure that the flag "goAmbush1" is triggered? I'm happy to take a look, just PM the miz to me (if possible without mods)

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag

I believe I have found the issue, its in the script. I changed spawnObject to spawnUnits and the troops spawned immediately goAmbush1 is triggered.

null 

[cfrag]

Just now, DD_Friar said:

I changed spawnObject to spawnUnits and the troops spawned immediately goAmbush1 is triggered.

awww. shucks. Shouldn't have watched the soccer match in the background while regression testing.  

[shinobi61]

2 hours ago, cfrag said:

Huh. That's a Kiowa thing then. Too bad. I'll try and file a "bug report" with the kind folk at polychop

i mean i hope its not me being dumb but here is my miz. Hot kiowa just need to hover on the spot, 4 targets 4 groups 1 unit each group, reaper above, launch hellfire on code C
 

L2MUM REAPER TEST.miz

[cfrag]

13 hours ago, shinobi61 said:

Hot kiowa just need to hover on the spot, 4 targets 4 groups 1 unit each group, reaper above, launch hellfire on code C

Hmmmm... what am I looking at? In other words: what are you doing, what are you expecting to see, what are you getting instead, and why do you think that  is a bug? (Before going much further: the Kiowa's bug report forum already has threads identifying the L2MUM's inability to correctly look at targets:

).

[DD_Friar]

To Clone or Not To Clone?

Salute one and all that have seen the light with DML

I recently have had a mission go a bit sour on me. It was one of the main missions we ran on squad server. It was on the Persian Gulf map and consisted of a number of targets to suit all the flying requirements for our squad members. It had SEAD, Air to ground, air to air, helicopter operations etc. Just recently at the time of the Phantom release frame rates have gone a bit wonky. We have also been doing some work on our server so can not fully rule out that (but other maps / missions do not present the same issues).

This mission is constantly evolving as I add new objectives / features to keep every ones flying choices fulfilled. To try and find the cause I have been chopping back all the different elements to see if I could get the frames back stable and pinpoint the cause. For reference I fly flat screen and set my frames capped at 60. I have a similar mission on the Syria map and get a solid 60 (using the Phantom as a constant). I have removed multiple SAM clones, I removed air to air clones, I have removed rockets, I have removed cloned convoys, all to no avail.

To get to the chase, I have decided to start from scratch and re-build it, checking as I go to make sure that as I add each element the frames are staying good.

For multiple placement of the same objects across the map, is it less resource hungry to use the spawner for each one or stick with the cloner. For example in the old version I have a total of 30 SAM sites spread across the map, a 50/50 mix of SA11 or SA8's. I use a rndFlag to pick 10 from the 30 so to randomise the what and where to keep the guys guessing.

Should I use a spawner for these and other placements (another example I have a convoy that is repeatedly randomly generated that could consist of 1 of 3 different groups of vehicles, (all trucks, trucks with protection, heavy armour) instead of clones? I think I recall seeing a post about clones causing possible memory issues?

Any advice / tips / shared experiences welcome.

Cheers

Friar

[cfrag]

52 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

is it less resource hungry to use the spawner for each one or stick with the cloner.

From the standpoint of DCS, there is no difference what module in DML spawns units/groups. They both use the same invocation to coalition.addGroup() that poofs the units into existence. Since cloners are so easy to use versus Spawners, I see a strong tendency that mission designers prefer cloners to Spawners, and the cloned groups often are more complex and numerous (cloners can clone multiple groups at a single go). Coming down to the metal, though, there is no difference: DCS can't tell the difference between something spawned with a Spawner versus something spawned with a cloner. What does matter to DCS is the number of AI units and the number of groups that are in the game. Each group and each unit take an individual toll.

Another important factor that I learned very recently is weather: some maps take a drastic performance hit if you turn on wind. So that may also be something to investigate.

52 minutes ago, DD_Friar said:

I think I recall seeing a post about clones causing possible memory issues?

That may be a misinterpretation of what was said. The issue at hand (IIRC) was that we suspect a memory leak (more precisely: a number of memory leaks) in DCS when a mission is running. The effect is that a group, after it is destroyed/deleted from memory, will not return all the memory that was allocated to it. In long-running missions that create and destroy many groups, the memory that was 'leaked' outside the memory pool can accumulate and then significantly deteriorate performance. One such finding was that after 4095 group creations and deletions, a DCS-internal table overflows, causing errors and performance degradation.

To force the issue and provide some diagnostic information to the people who investigate this issue, I wrote a mission that created and destroyed 17 groups per second. My choice of tool to do this was a DML cloner - because DML cloners are so darn easy to use versus spawners.  And sure enough, after 4095 group allocation and deletions, the aforementioned table overflow error hit. This does NOT mean that the cloner was the cause. It's a DCS (not DML) problem, and I merely chose to use a cloner to illustrate it - simply because I am lazy. A Spawner would have had the same result, and it would have taken me at least five times as long to create the demo miz. In other words: there is no issue with cloners (nor Spawners). Cloners are far too easy to use for their own good, so this may have caused you to assume that they were at fault  - they are not, it's a DCS iisue.

 

Edited June 25, 2024 by cfrag

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag - REF Spawner / heloTroops Modules

I am currently working on building a new mission and am having an issue with the spawner and heloTroops.

I am using 2.26b modules.

My issue is that previously when I requested troops they spawned in as a reasonably tight line. Now when I request a group they are spaced out way beyond the zone I have placed for them.

I have attached some screen shots below of the zone and the results. I have tried these settings and the multiplier option. 

Any thoughts?

 

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, DD_Friar said:

My issue is that previously when I requested troops they spawned in as a reasonably tight line. Now when I request a group they are spaced out way beyond the zone I have placed for them.

I haven't checked, but I don't think that spawners support quad based zones. Can I trouble you to use a circular, small zone for the spawner?

 

Edited June 26, 2024 by cfrag

[DD_Friar]

@cfrag Perhaps I had it working accidentally then. Please see below screen shots from an older mission I made that does the same thing.